ME1033 Open and User Innovation 7.5 credits
Öppen och användardriven innovation
The course concerns the sources of innovations and firms’ innovation strategies. We will go through how firms traditionally work with internal R&D and then emphasize on ways for the firm to connect to external sources of innovations, for example universities, suppliers, users and so forth.
We will, however, put most emphasize on the users of the services or products, because it has been found that users are a particular important source of innovation. Furthermore, we will discuss the challenges of opening up for external ideas and also look at firms that are “born open”. The course will distinguish between different types of the firm’s outbound activities to engage users in the innovation process; crowdsourcing, idea contests, innovation communities and lead-user method.
There will a special lecture of innovation communities and we will look into active communities as well as some historic ones such as the famous Homebrew Club for personal computers in Silicon Valley in the 70’s. This will lead us to pose questions such as why individuals put in so much time and effort into creating new products and services without being paid to do so. We will, therefore, scrutinize the underlying mechanisms for open source software and talk about the lessons learned in e.g. the development of Linux.
These types of innovations are not created within the boundaries of a firm or in an organizational setting of the firm. Sometimes when users have created an innovation they chose to commercialize it themselves, and we shall look a bit deeper into what is now being called user entrepreneurs. Well known cases are the Wright Brothers and Google.
We will touch upon related topics such as open data, open science, eco-systems etc.
Education cycle
First cycleMain field of study
Technology
Grading scale
A, B, C, D, E, FX, F
Course offerings
Autumn 19 for programme students
-
Periods
Autumn 19 P2 (7.5 credits)
-
Application code
51168
Start date
28/10/2019
End date
14/01/2020
Language of instruction
English
Campus
KTH Campus
Tutoring time
Daytime
Form of study
Normal
-
Number of places *
10 - 65
*) The Course date may be cancelled if number of admitted are less than minimum of places. If there are more applicants than number of places selection will be made.
Course responsible
Terrence Brown <terrence@kth.se>
Teacher
Serdar Temiz <serdar.temiz@indek.kth.se>
Terrence Brown <terrence@kth.se>
Target group
Conditionally elective for TIVNM1
Open for all programmes
Part of programme
Autumn 18 for programme students
-
Periods
Autumn 18 P2 (7.5 credits)
-
Application code
50936
Start date
29/10/2018
End date
14/01/2019
Language of instruction
English
Campus
KTH Campus
Tutoring time
Daytime
Form of study
Normal
-
Number of places *
10 - 65
*) The Course date may be cancelled if number of admitted are less than minimum of places. If there are more applicants than number of places selection will be made.
Schedule
Course responsible
Terrence Brown <terrence@kth.se>
Teacher
Serdar Temiz <serdar.temiz@indek.kth.se>
Terrence Brown <terrence@kth.se>
Target group
Conditionally elective for TIVNM1
Open for all programmes
Part of programme
- Bachelor's Programme in Information and Communication Technology, year 2, Optional
- Bachelor's Programme in Information and Communication Technology, year 3, Optional
- Master's Programme, ICT Innovation, 120 credits, year 1, Conditionally Elective
- Master's Programme, ICT Innovation, 120 credits, year 1, AUSM, Conditionally Elective
- Master's Programme, ICT Innovation, 120 credits, year 1, AUSY, Conditionally Elective
- Master's Programme, ICT Innovation, 120 credits, year 1, DASC, Conditionally Elective
- Master's Programme, ICT Innovation, 120 credits, year 1, DASE, Conditionally Elective
- Master's Programme, ICT Innovation, 120 credits, year 1, DMTE, Conditionally Elective
- Master's Programme, ICT Innovation, 120 credits, year 1, DMTK, Conditionally Elective
- Master's Programme, ICT Innovation, 120 credits, year 1, HCID, Conditionally Elective
- Master's Programme, ICT Innovation, 120 credits, year 1, HCIN, Conditionally Elective
- Master's Programme, ICT Innovation, 120 credits, year 1, INSM, Conditionally Elective
- Master's Programme, ICT Innovation, 120 credits, year 1, INSY, Conditionally Elective
- Master's Programme, ICT Innovation, 120 credits, year 1, ITAK, Conditionally Elective
- Master's Programme, ICT Innovation, 120 credits, year 1, ITAR, Conditionally Elective
Intended learning outcomes
This course starts with a discussion of what innovation is and how innovation relates to entrepreneurship. In this way we will also discuss the learning targets for the course and how this will be achieved. For example what skills can be expected to be learned and when can these be used, and how do these skills work in the context of your future professions as entrepreneurs, experts, developers, managers and so forth.
At the end the course, the students should be able to:
- Understand the historical context of innovation strategy and how the Internet affects innovation strategy.
- Understand how and why innovations appear in different sectors of the Economy.
- Analyze different approaches to innovation and what outcomes that can be expected.
- Understand the fundamentals of innovation communities.
- Develop skills to manage an R&D process external to a firm, e.g. the lead-user method or an innovation community.
- Increase your knowledge of real-life cases such as the Procter & Gamble “Connect + Develop”.
Course main content
1. Innovation stratege
2. Sources of innovation
3. Opening up the firm
4. Barriers to innovation
5. Social structures of non-firm innovations
Each part of the course will include theory and new research, combined with exercises to analyze innovation and innovation processes in organizations.
Eligibility
Completed upper secondary education.
Literature
“Democratizing Innovation”, von Hippel, Eric (2005), the MIT Press, Boston
http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ1.htm (Creative Commons License, download for free)
+ extra material (paper articles and academic articles)
Examination
- INL1 - Assignments, 2.0, grading scale: A, B, C, D, E, FX, F
- INL2 - Written Report, 4.0, grading scale: A, B, C, D, E, FX, F
- SEM1 - Seminars, 1.5, grading scale: A, B, C, D, E, FX, F
Offered by
ITM/Industrial Economics and Management
Contact
Serdar Temiz, serdar.temiz@indek.kth.se, 08-790 77 28
Examiner
Terrence Brown <terrence@kth.se>
Supplementary information
NB. The course has limited seats.
Version
Course syllabus valid from: Autumn 2016.
Examination information valid from: Autumn 2012.